Newsday.comDoughnuts laced with laxativesDeanna Tarasco didn’t think twice before reaching into the big box of doughnuts her friends brought to Sequoya Middle School in Holtsville and taking a bite of a chocolate frosted with sprinkles.
Suddenly, her friends burst out laughing. “Another friend told me: ‘Don’t eat it, they did something to it,'” said Tarasco, 13, an eighth-grade student from Holbrook.
She had fallen for a prank, along with 18 other students who ate doughnuts handed out Friday by five popular boys. The doughnuts were stuffed with chocolate-flavored laxative pills, mimicking a prank shown on an MTV program recently.
Suffolk police weren’t laughing.
The five boys – two 13-year-olds and three 14-year-olds – were arrested and charged with tampering with a consumer product, a misdemeanor, before being turned over to their parents. Their names were not released.
Lake County News-SunGrandma suffers monkey bar injuryGURNEE – Grandmother Mary Baio was expected to be at home from the hospital this week after the active senior hurt herself while showing her 7-year-old granddaughter how to use the monkey bars on the family’s play set.
The 74-year-old was injured a week ago when she took granddaughter Emily Baio outside to enjoy the 70-degree weather and the girl asked about the monkey bars, a metal ladder suspended in the air that kids can grab the bars and swing from one to the next until they get all the way across.
“I was grabbing it to swing back and forth,” Baio said. “I didn’t pay attention when I went to grab it. When I fell, I hit my forehead on the wood. I fell and passed out.”
When she came to, she had Emily call her father, Sam, and he called for an ambulance. Mary lives next door.
She’s pretty matter-of-fact about her three-hour-plus surgery at Condell Medical Center, Libertyville.
“They put a plate in with a couple of screws,” Baio said about her shoulder injury. “I’m all black and blue.”
“It was one of those crazy things,” she said. Like a grandmother swinging from a monkey bar?
“We play every day. You have to keep young,” Baio said. “My arm came out of the socket, the way I turned. It happened so fast. It was one of the craziest things.”
The Journal NewsMan spray paints three goatsMAHOPAC – Criminal charges were dropped last night against a Mahopac man whom police charged last fall with animal cruelty and burglary for breaking into a barn and spray-painting three goats.
Drew Gagnon, 37, was arrested in November after police said he broke into the barn on Croton Falls Road early Thanksgiving morning and used orange spray paint on the genitals of the three goats owned by the Fiero family. Carmel police charged him with third-degree burglary, a felony and three misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.
In court last night, the goats’ owner, Bryce Fiero, told Town Justice Joseph Spofford that he would withdraw the charges in exchange for Gagnon and his alleged accomplice, Douglas Bisio, 34, of Mahopac, making a donation to the Putnam Humane Society.
Bisio was charged with misdemeanor criminal facilitation for allegedly driving Gagnon to the barn.
Through their attorney, Christopher X. Maher, Gagnon and Bisio agreed to donate a total of $2,000 to the Humane Society and to stay off Fiero family property.
Cecil WhigDog gives lady Heimlich maneuverA Calvert woman claims her 2-year-old golden retriever saved her life Friday by giving her the canine version of the Heimlich maneuver.
“The doctor said I probably wouldn’t be here without Toby,” said Debbie Parkhurst, 45, a jewelry artist who lives near Rising Sun High School with her husband, Kevin, and their two dogs. “I keep looking at him and saying ‘You’re amazing.'”
Parkhurst said she was home alone with the dogs Friday afternoon when she decided to snack on an apple.
Suddenly, she said, a chunk of the fruit became wedged in her windpipe.
“It was lodged pretty tight because I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I tried to do the thing where you lean over a chair and give yourself the Heimlich, but it didn’t work.”
Parkhurst said she then began beating her chest, an action that might have attracted Toby’s attention.
“The next think I know, Toby’s up on his hind feet and he’s got his front paws on my shoulders,” she said. “He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.”
Toby’s jumping apparently managed to dislodge the apple from Parkhurst’s windpipe.
“As soon as I started breathing, he stopped and began licking my face, as if to keep me from passing out,” she said.
A friend soon arrived and, after witnessing the canine rescue, drove Parkhurst to the doctor’s office.
“I literally, have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest,” Parkhurst said. “I’m still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I’m OK.”
Information complied from obscurestore.com
